


shadow girls

by kwritten



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:12:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intel comes to the Scoobies that a Slayer is needed in the future, but Dawn gets swept into the spell instead - and stuck in a world very different from her own.</p><p>a/n: some knowledge of Fray helpful, but not required; post(mid?)-S7 BtVS; beginning midst-Catching Fire and going AU sometime after that; In the midst of writing I realized that this is more film-canon compliant than book-canon compliant, just because the timeline gave me more wiggle room</p>
            </blockquote>





	shadow girls

"But I've seen the future remember? Last Slayer in the world - has a crazy twin brother? We did this part already!"  
  
"That's just  _one_  of a million alternative timelines of the future."  
  
"Anyway, Buff - we already said this isn't nearly as far away. It's possible that the timestreams overlap--"  
  
"No, we checked the numbers sweetie, this is definitely different."  
  
"Just think of it like a different dimension."  
  
"But I can't be responsible for all the dimensions!"  
  
"Well of course not. That's not what we're saying."  
  
"B is right, why are we having to deal with this."  
  
Dawn stood patiently as Willow, Kennedy, Buffy, Anya, and Faith argued and defended and mostly just got steamed up over the same argument that had kept them all riled for the past couple of days. She was going to give them five more minutes.  
  
"I'm just saying Will --"  
  
"Don't take that tone with her! She's just doing her job!"  
  
"You wanna go Baby Slayer?"  
  
"Will...?"  
  
"Honey, remember we talking about not agitating the escaped convicts."  
  
"I swear to god Willow--"  
  
Okay thirty seconds then.  
  
Dawn cleared her throat, "Okay well then the spell is all ready, let's send the Slayers off on the mission!"  
  
She had to duck as a candlestick came flying too close to her head.  
  
"ALRIGHT I'M STARTING THE SPELL NOW."  
  
She heard a couple crashes from behind her as she knelt over the spell book on the ground, but ignored them - keeping her concentration just like Tara had taught her in that summer... she shook her head to clear it and blinked to keep the tears from blocking out the instructions (that she had memorized days ago). Underneath, between, the spell and the rhythm of the motions and the comfort of the smells emitted from drawstring bags carefully prepared at just the right moment, there was the lingering worry that someone other than the spell's intended warriors would end up on the other end of the future. Lingering in the light tremor of her hands was the very real concern that Willow should have been the hands at the wheel for something this epic.   
  
When she breathed in the smoke of the rosemary candle - the very last step of the spell - and immediately saw the bright flash of green erupt around her, the only thing she could think to say was, "Well fuck me."  
  
  
  
  
  
Which of course was the first thing that the young girl with the elaborate blonde braid heard her say, which was just the most perfect way she could think of to herald her crashing into the living room of the future.   
  
And then she passed out.

  
  
  
  
The intel Andrew had forwarded along from Headquarters had suggested a war. Dawn wasn't really expecting to arrive in the home of a young teenage girl and her frightened mother.   
  
She was expecting a war - not a silent rebellion hiding under guards and facades and heavy, weighted silences.   
  
Dawn Summers was accustomed to fighting a secret war, but not one like this.  
  
  
  
  
  
After a couple of days of watching with baited breathe as the political atmosphere rose and grew thicker with anticipation, Gale finally explained a little harshly, "You're used to a war. A war you know you can't win, but at least the world knows you are in the right to fight. This is a rebellion. Rebellions are always just hostile skirmishes with terrorists until someone wins and writes the history books. You're the bad guy to them." He nodded his head towards the screen where the childhood love of his life accepted a marriage proposal in a shining dress while a crowd cheered.  
  
"To the Capital, we are the threat. We are the demons coming up from underneath, trying to take away their status quo and drink from their lifeblood. We are the vampires in your stories."  
  
"But that's not how it works," Dawn was still so young in so many ways. Too young for this world of fear.  
  
Gale just stared hard at the girl in the shining dress on the screen and took a drink from the glass of scotch in his hand.   
  
Dawn had been there when the Capital guard hand-delivered it to the house. They knew Gale was there - he was always there, sitting in the kitchen staring at nothing. She watched him crumple up the note attached to the crystal decanter. She smelled dry roses as he stalked past her to the living room. She mopped up Prim's tears as she dragged the note out of her chapped, red hands.

 

_Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials._

  
  
  
  
Two nights later, Prim crept into the room that once was her sisters and now held a strange not-warrior from a distant world and curled her head onto Dawn's shoulder. "Tomorrow the Games start."  
  
Dawn tightened her grip around the younger girl's shoulders and tried not to show her fear at what was coming next. "I'm sorry I'm not her."  
  
Prim pulled away and punched her in the arm, "Never say that again idiot."  
  
"Ow. What was that for?"  
  
"You think we'd be better with Katniss here than you, don't you? You think Gale would drink less. That mom would cry less. That I'd--" Prim's voice caught in her throat.  
  
Dawn laughed. "No. I'm sorry I'm not -  _Her_. You know? My sister. The  _Slayer_. The Almighty General of Legions. She'd have come up with a plan already. She'd... She wouldn't just be hanging around your house being useless."  
  
Prim took Dawn's hands in hers, "You brought magic. The war was already here. Maybe what we needed was you all along."  
  
Sometimes when they slept all curled around each other, Prim's hand clutching hers, she thought back to the months she spent curled up next to the Buffybot and drew the girl closer.   
  
She may not be a Slayer - she may not be Katniss either - but she was at least a better substitute than a hunk of plastic and metal.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sometimes in the days leading up to the Games, she caught Gale by surprise running into the room hot on Prim's heels. The days in the Everdeen home blurred into games with Prim and teaching her quiet mother some of the few simple poultices she could remember from her inconsistent magickal studies. She felt more often like a ghost than a real person - especially in those moments when Gale seemed to look straight through her into another person. It was unsettling.  
  
"Your mom doesn't look at me like that."  
  
"That's because you're nothing like Katniss - not really."  
  
"Then why--"  
  
"We see what we want to see. Gale sees... brown hair and happiness and quick movements... he sees the Katniss he's in love with. Even if that Katniss never existed. It's something that he wants. Or maybe didn't know he wanted until you started galloping through the house like you belong here."  
  
"How'd you get so smart, kid?"  
  
"No one can see me," the girl shrugged. "I see more than they think. Now stop wiggling so much, I'll never finish this braid if you don't sit still."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When they had to run, Dawn felt for sure that Buffy would be at the other end of the running, and she could stop being worried. Only she wasn't. And District 13 felt more like a bad dream than District 12 had. Here there was no warm kitchen and soft visits from Gale. Now there were regulations and worse food and a deeper chill.  
  
Prim still snuck up into her bunk every night and she told the girl fantastical stories of all the demons her sister had fought and every apocalypse she'd lived through. And they escaped into the dream world she spun with her stories so that they didn't have to think about the Mockingjay and the story they were being spun into like shadows in the hands of a silent magician..  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"But why can't I talk to her? I've come all this way! I'm  _supposed_ to talk to her!"  
  
"Listen kid, just go back in line and stop making a ruckus."  
  
"But I need to talk to Katniss!"  
  
"Yeah - you and every other fangirl with that same, stupid braid."  
  
"But I'm not-- I'm--! I traveled through  _time_ to help her!"  
  
"Yeah? And I'm President Fucking Snow in disguise. Get the hell out of my way, kid."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Prim?"  
  
"Yeah, Dawn?"  
  
"Why did I come here?"  
  
"Tell me the story about the dancing demon again."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"Only this time get married and I'll be your maid of honor. I like that ending better."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Dawn spends her days nursing the wounded with Prim and her nights wandering District 13, wondering where her sister might be. She's more invisible here than she ever was with the Scoobies. At least with them they had to acknowledge her eventually. Even when their army count rose from a handful to in the double digits, she was still visible.  
  
Here she is a shadow, blown about in the crowds.  
  
There isn't a word or an inkling from home. There's no sign of Buffy's blonde hair in the crowds.  
  
She stops wondering.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
" _Fuck_!"  
  
"Prim!"  
  
"Sorry-not-sorry."  
  
Dawn chuckled and tugged on the girl's braid. "What's up?"  
  
"Katniss is leaving again."  
  
"Hero-types like Katniss have a lot to do."  
  
"You're a hero-type!"  
  
"No. I'm not."  
  
"Fuck that. We both are. We survived, didn't we?"  
  
"Survived hiding long enough to hide again."  
  
"Like that girl you told me about. In the attic."  
  
"Anne Frank?"  
  
"Yeah her."  
  
"Prim, she died. The Nazis got her and she was put in a gas chamber."  
  
"We're all alive until we're not."  
  
"In the meantime, bandages and blood and more bandages?"  
  
"Tell me the story of the vampire Snow - the one that liked to leave creepy notes."  
  
"Angelus?"  
  
"Sure. Whatever. Just distract me, okay? Tell me a story where the good guys win."  
  
"Prim I don't think --"  
  
"Just lie to me, okay?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Being a shadow has some advantages, she realizes sooner or later.  
  
Only there's a reason why shadows can't talk.  
  
You don't want to know what they know.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"If the girl dies--"  
  
"You're not seriously suggesting--!?"  
  
"I need the Everdeen girl, do you have a better suggestion?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Dawn is pretty sure this isn't what heroes are supposed to do, but there's no way out of it now.   
  
What's done is done.  
  
She's not losing her world again.   
  
Damn the war.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"You  _drugged_ me!?"  
  
"They are going to kill you, do you understand?"  
  
"So how do you know they still won't?"  
  
"Because... because they think you're already dead."  
  
"Who?!"  
  
"Everyone."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Drugging Prim wasn't so hard.   
  
They always ate together. Even in the midst of war with the blood and the screaming and the death all around - tugging at her sleeves and dripping into her shoes day after day, night after night. Prim was made for this - trained for this - fought for this, and Dawn stayed doggedly at her side. She made a much more clumsy nurse than her young companion. But she had a few tricks up her sleeve - on a good day, she could at least get the patients that needed it the most into a (slightly) less painful sleep. There were some things from her world she still retained. There was still magick here, even if she wasn't an expert or anything. Even in the rush and crush, Dawn made sure that Prim ate something every three to four hours. She couldn't afford Prim collapsing. She kept spare odds and ends in her pockets.  
  
Drugging Prim wasn't so hard. Carrying her back to the main dorm with the other girls was a bit harder because even in the teeming masses, an Everdeen is a precious commodity. She does her best. She's only given a few odd looks with Prim's bright blonde mop tucked under her chin.  
  
Chopping off her hair is more difficult. Scissors aren't easy to find in a rebellion, apparently. Luckily she made friends with one of the girls who works with the seamstresses and has a kit under her bed. It's a tiny pair of scissors. She dulls them hacking through Prim's thick locks. She ruins the beautiful blonde hair, cutting it as close to the scalp as she can.  
  
Hiding the hair is only slightly less difficult than all the other stages - more because she didn't really think about that part. She finally stuffs the hair into several pillows sprinkled throughout the empty dorm. No one will notice until it's too late.  
  
Changing a sleeping teenage girl is not at all like the one time she tried to babysit for Mrs. Cooper's toddler and had to stuff a sleeping boy into a nightie. For one thing, the limbs are much longer and heavier. Luckily it was easy enough to steal the boys' standard issue clothes from the laundry room. Kiss a boy once and he'll do anything. Dawn has never had less faith in the opposite sex's ability to make decisions or hold positions of power.   
  
In much longer time than she accounted for, Prim is draped over her shoulders in boy's overalls and cap, her face smudged with dirt and they are walking out the door.  
  
Well, not really  _the_ door.  
  
First they have to drop Prim's laundry off so they get mixed in with all the others and aren't noticed.   
  
And then Dawn has to pull out the pass of exit that she stole off a sleeping guard a week before to get to another part of District 13.  
  
It's a labyrinth.  
  
But she can still hear the ruckus above.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They're hiding in an abandoned building in the Capital when Prim finally wakes up.  
  
"How long have I been asleep?"  
  
"About a day or so..."  
  
"You carried me all this way?"  
  
Dawn shrugs.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They watch Katniss kill President Coin instead of President Snow.  
  
They escape into the crowd.  
  
They hide in District 10 for a while, watching the screens for signs of Katniss or Peeta or Gale.  
  
Prim watches Dawn hard when Gale's face appears on the screen, but all the older girl does is squeeze her hand harder.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"She's being moved to District 12."  
  
"I saw."  
  
"Prim?"  
  
"Yeah, Dawn. I saw, okay?"  
  
"Don't you want to ... I mean... we can?"  
  
"She's already suffered enough Dawn."  
  
"She killed for you."  
  
"She killed a lot of people for a lot of reasons. She volunteered for me. She won for me. She came back for me. She won again for me. She killed Coin for me. I don't want to be her reason to kill anymore."  
  
"She killed to  _save_ you."  
  
"You saved me. And you didn't kill anyone."  
  
"Prim..."  
  
"Shut up. Just shut up Dawn."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"The Golden Hero is pregnant."  
  
"Huh..."  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"I want to leave, is it okay if we leave?"  
  
"Well... I mean yeah. We can go wherever you want. Do you ... I mean 12 is ..."  
  
"I want to go somewhere where I don't have to know what's happening to her."  
  
"She's the Golden Hero of the New Nation. That's gonna be hard."  
  
"There's gotta be something beyond the walls of the Districts. Don't you think? Maybe even find your way back home."  
  
"Maybe there's a yellow brick road with a wizard at the end."  
  
"I just... I want to think she's happy."  
  
"I know."  
  
"I want to think... that she's okay and she's happy and they aren't using her anymore. But every time something happens her face is right there and mine isn't far behind and..."  
  
"I can get us supplies, okay hon? We can leave."  
  
"I don't want to be reminded that I can't go back. That they won't let her...   _You_ don't have to live like that. I don't want to know my death is... what they do... I can't watch anymore!"  
  
"So we'll start over."  
  
"Yeah. I'd like that."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Somewhere between finding a hole in a wall and building a shack in the woods, somewhere after the flight but before the blisters heal, somewhere between swallowing their fear and recognizing it, they stop pretending to be siblings.   
  
Somewhere in the wild, outside of the walls of the lives they almost lead, they stop clinging to the girls they were supposed to be and start to embrace the shadows that were always there.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The first time Prim kisses Dawn, they're sitting by a creek and too exhausted to do much but let the water run over their feet. She giggles about something she'll never explain. Dawn giggles back because her lips are so warm and soft and they haven't giggled together since that time when they were still children in the Victor's Village. It's funny how you can miss waiting when it's over.   
  
Dawn kisses her back and they fall into the creek and laugh louder than they've laughed in a really long time.  
  
And that's where it starts and everything else ends. With a blonde head tucked under her shoulder every night - just like it had been for so long - but so different than it has ever been and everything seems right.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Why did you kiss me?"  
  
"Your lips are just so cute and kissable."  
  
"I mean it."  
  
"The first time you mean, by the creek?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"I didn't want you to think that ... Did you ever kiss Gale?"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Just answer the question."  
  
"No. Never."  
  
"I thought--"  
  
"Okay once."  
  
"You cheat!"  
  
"Only once! It was just... he kissed my cheek once. In the kitchen I came down in the middle of the night before the Games and he was sitting there in the dark. He didn't say a word, just kissed my cheek and then left. It was weird. Like I wasn't even there."  
  
"I didn't want you to feel that way."  
  
"You didn't want me to feel like you were kissing Katniss. Cool."  
  
"Weirdo, no! I didn't want you to think... that when I looked at you, I was looking for her. Because I'm not. I wasn't. That was never--"  
  
"I never thought that kiddo."  
  
"Well I needed you to be sure."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"I keep thinking about it."  
  
"About what?"  
  
"About that intel that Andrew emailed me."  
  
"About how we needed the Slayer?"  
  
"I think... I think I needed you."  
  
"God you are such a sap."  
  
"Prim promise me."  
  
"Never to be an old sap like you? Done and done."  
  
"No. Promise that if you ever see a flash of green light, that you hold onto me and don't let go."  
  
"Dawn... why?"  
  
"Because I know my sister. I know she's still probably trying to find me. Just promise."  
  
"Okay. I promise."  
  
"You don't think that'll happen, do you?"  
  
"No. But just in case. I'm not leaving you behind. Not ever."  
  
"You better not."  
  
  


 

 

 

"Do you ever think..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Forget it."  
  
"Just tell me. You've been chewing on something for weeks and it's driving me crazy."  
  
"Do you ever think that if Buffy had come instead of me that--?"  
  
"No."  
  
"No? You didn't even let me finish."  
  
"I don't have to. You're about to say something stupid."  
  
"Finnick would be alive."  
  
"Or a lot more people would be dead."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
"Neither do you. The spell sent you. So that's what happened. So there."  
  
"I just---"  
  
"She wouldn't have saved me."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I've thought about it, okay?" Prim sighed. "And the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that General Buffy wouldn't have noticed that I was supposed to die. She would have been in the meetings with Katniss, she wouldn't have been able to stop it. If she had come - I'd have stayed invisible, a nursemaid in a war that wanted me dead. I'm alive because you came."  
  
"Maybe Coin never would have --- "  
  
"I wouldn't have fallen in love with General Buffy. I wouldn't have run away with her. That's it. That's the end. I'm glad you came."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Life, Dawn realizes over time, goes on with the sun rising and setting in the wild, on the run, just as it did in Sunnydale - just as it did in the rebellion, just as it did in District 13.  _At least we can see it here_ , Prim says cheerfully to the starry sky. Dawn thinks she knows geography pretty well and she's sure they're still on Earth and that the plates haven't moved, so they move East - stopping sometimes for days or for months if the weather is good or bad. Or sometimes just because Prim's eyes light up in a clearing or at a certain tree and so they claim it for a while.   
  
Dawn hopes they get to the ocean soon. She wants to watch Prim dip her toes into the cold water and squeal and splash around and dance in the sand in the moonlight. But if they don't - that's okay, too. There was so much time waiting and hiding now they take their time and are cautious, but optimistic.   
  
"I want to dance with you on the beach," she says solemnly into the short blonde hair always tucked under her shoulder.  
  
Surely the whole world isn't like Panem. Surely there's a world out there for them. If not, the one they are trekking through is enough for now.

 

So they'll just keep on walking, hand in hand. Until something changes or nothing changes.

 

Dawn stops having a preference.  
Prim starts sleeping without nightmares.  
  
  
  
This is where the dreaming begins. 

 

_Somewhere between your world and mine._

 


End file.
